There’s an underlying truth to what he says that his cult vibes with: almost anyone who makes it anywhere in American politics is a sleazeball and/or criminal. He’s basically making the case that he’s just as corrupt as everyone else, so the cult loves him for “telling it like it is”

The response is extremely weak, because his opponents implicitly declare themselves squeaky clean. It just makes people hate them more 😒

I knew the Republican modus operandi was to Gaslight, Obstruct, and Project…

But this helps explain why the Trump campaign’s response to “Donald Trump smells bad” was “You smell bad and you never held a real job”

Fascists use projection & hypocrisy as weapons.

Na UUHhHhh!

Thats what THEY did!

I only did it because they were doing it WORSE!

Quoted from a Random 5 Year Old

Happened live on stage in 2016 and nobody on the right cared.

I’m no puppet, no puppet… genius idea: YOU are the puppet!

I mean… there is a reason why it works, US politics are incredibly corrupt. Hell, bribery is legal.

But because of not wanting to get blackballed people with influence can’t come out and say “of course they’re corrupt, but not as much as you”

I’ll get modded down for this (lemmy hates discussion) but I’ve seen many liberals doing the same thing. Often saying “what they are doing is terrible, we should do the same thing because they’re doing it!” You’ll likely even see people replying to me trying to justify this. Partisanship is a hell of a drug.

The difference here is that it’s a former president and presidential hopeful saying/doing this not some twenty-something on lemmy. Party leadership should definitely know better and be held to higher standards.